Solitaire
by Anne Bowman
Summary: Someone in the Phillips house reflects on the nightly routine they share with a frequent guest.


AN: In case you didn't know, I don't own the unnamed (but obvious, I think?) characters, nor do I own the song: "Solitaire," by Suzanne Vega. :)

_Black on the red and the red on the black.  
It's a tic of a tired mind.  
Come and sit down, won't you try your luck  
See if you unwind._

Sleep has become the elusive reward for an exhausting day. Since my days since the tour ended are not particularly tiring, I find myself sitting at this table in the maddening hours between dusk and dawn with nothing but silence echoing through this house and sometimes nothing but these cards to keep me company. It's a rhythm you build, playing against yourself, playing against fate. In this game, everything is left up to chance and every move you make could be the key to your undoing. Some people who also live in this house scoff and claim the routine is boring; they prefer competition against other players. I like to compete against the world at large. 

_Never use your threes and twos.  
Follow superstition.  
Otherwise you are going to lose.  
Compulsion makes you listen._

He pads into the kitchen looking exactly as he did ten years ago, only he's graduated from little-boy pajamas into the rumpled rebel clothes of one who is pretending to be more reckless than he is. I greet him only with a welcoming smile. This, too, has become part of the nightly routine, on the nights he is able to stay. I don't know what keeps him awake. We don't talk about our respective motivations, though I suppose he has his suspicions about me, as I have my own regarding him. Our mutual passion for method and repetition was discovered during this last round on the road. At first we played competitive games, but it soon became clear that in the heat of a late-night competition, certain rules that kept things running smoothly during the day could quickly be forgotten and tossed away in the dim light of 3am. So we retreated to our corners and play alone together. Now the only sound is cards laid upon others, slowly at first, then almost feverishly as the game progresses.

_Take what's wrong, and make it go right.  
Weave it like a prayer.  
Wonder if you'll spend the night?  
Playing solitaire?_

K, Q, J, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4. The unrelenting order is comforting. Ace, 2, 3, 4. He gets frustrated when he finds that he has defeated himself, or perhaps that the world at large has defeated him again. Normally this is his cue to shuffle and begin a new game, but tonight he does something different. He rises instead, leaving his cards disturbed and scattered across his half of the table. He comes around to my side, to observe my game. The world rarely defeats me these days, as I have become hardened and methodical from years of experience. There is, of course, a victory also to be found in defeating yourself, but it is difficult to determine which side of your personality you should be pleased for in such cases. Is it your good side placing card upon card, and your evil side plotting to make all the wrong moves, to act rashly and sabotage your chances? Or is it your evil side keeping you addicted to the repetitive motion, and your good side fighting to stir things up? 

_Do it again, when you find you're all done.  
Like an idiot savant.  
Shuffle up your luck. You see, you almost won.  
Now wrestle down what you want._

He waits, patiently. Good defeats evil, or perhaps evil defeats good. Either way, one of me has won. I stack up the cards and shuffle again. Now he is staring. I arch an eyebrow, intrigued by this deviation, and meet his stare, issuing a silent challenge. Make your move. The night can be dangerous, you know. It is easy to lose track of why certain things simply aren't done in daylight when the world is black. It is easy to abandon the principles to which you adhere so closely during the day. It is easy to cross lines that aren't crossed when you aren't alone. He holds out his hand. I stare at it like it is a peculiar alien object I have never seen before this moment. He does not waver. I take his challenge and rise. His turn. He does not waste time, jumping ahead of the game. This is, I suppose, the disadvantage of youth; the eagerness to have the game finished, regardless of the outcome, because perhaps if you repeat it often enough, you will win. This is not the path to victory, age teaches you--even if you are an unwilling student. He moves closer. Is it my turn now, or is this a two-part action? The next move is indeed mine. I let evil conquer good inside my head and kiss him, aggressively. (It is not the first time. In solitaire, as in all card games, there is plenty of repetition.)

_Jack on the Queen, and the ten on the Jack.  
It's a happy repetition.  
You and your fate in a kind of check-mate.  
And you are your only competition._

I have noticed him attacking me across the room with a questioning stare during the day, even as we play the roles the others expect of us. Why can the game not be played in the open sunlight? But he knows the answer as well as I do. One move can be your undoing. The time isn't right. Perhaps one day it will. I don't have to explain this. He accepts the silent answer and resumes his part in the daily production. It is inevitable that certain elements of our routine are manifested in our interactions around the others, and I often wonder if anyone suspects us. Sometimes these small reminders make an intolerable afternoon more palatable. I suppose it is due to that very fact that one day our secret will be revealed. Ours is a pleasurable routine and I understand why his desire is to play during the day as well as the night. But while others sleep, we engage in our games, and while others are awake, we coast through what is assumed to be the important portion of our lives just waiting for this particular moment. I don't think I could handle anything more serious than what this is right now. In the game it's easy to be thrown off-balance by the warring forces in your own head, and I acknowledge that I have more of those than some people. Him, for instance. Perhaps he doesn't know the extent of my occasional madness, or perhaps he's naive enough to think people can be fixed. I can't imagine anyone loving the flaws. Yet some nights his fingers play my scars like the frets on a guitar, like he's fascinated with the potential stories I keep safely locked inside my mind. Maybe one night I'll break the silence. Not tonight, though.

_Take what's wrong, and make it go right.  
You can weave it like a prayer.  
Are you going to spend the night?  
Playing solitaire?_

We find ourselves playing 52 Pick-Up instead after an hour or three or four of this happy distraction from the original game. Then the cards are removed from the floor and stacked together on the recently vacated table. We return to our initial positions on opposite sides and sort out the separate decks, disentangling them as if they were errant limbs. Once everything is sorted out and straightened, it is again the game of red on black and black on red. I suppose in the other game I am the black and he is the red. I am hard and depressed, the color of death. He is passionate and angry, the color of love and war. Yet in this game we are dependent upon each other; one cannot exist inside these rules without the other. Once in a while I catch him smiling at me across the cards like an idiot. Like an idiot I smile back and return to the repetition. K, Q, J, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4. Ace, 2, 3. The slick surfaces tap against each other quietly, though as dawn breaks the sound can be deafening. Alarms ring elsewhere in the house and each deck is stacked securely. They are pushed into their separate boxes and shoved together into a drawer where they'll stay in the dark until the house is at rest again. He presses his lips against mine, hard, and I can feel his hope that today will be the day the lines are crossed and rules are broken--or is it my own? 

He retreats, making tonight's final move, closing the door behind him. 

So who has won? Good or evil? Perhaps it is the world at large that defeats us every day we refuse to disturb the order of the other games we play during daylight hours...

Perhaps today we will start playing to win.

_Repetition...  
Repetition...  
Repetition..._


End file.
